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Here’s a video on “How To Be Asian” by some chick named Nicole. It’s supposed to be funny or something? Apparently it’s an inside joke and part of an ongoing schtick of Nicole’s that involves putting shit on her face to become another race (black, usually) and maybe being self-satirizing about it but also maybe just being lazy and racist.

Taped eyes? Yellowface? Ching chong? Yawn.

The real tip on “How To Be Asian” that’s missing from the vid? If you want to be Asian, rule number one is Don’t Suck. I don’t know if this video was supposed to make me laugh or give me an outrage boner but neither happened. It just kinda hung there like a stale fart waiting to be collected in a glass jar and ushered out of the room so the rest of us could carry on. It was meh, it was mediocre. Mediocrity, of course, is failure, and failure isn’t Asian.

The story of 36-year-old single mom Seemona Sumasar (detailed earlier this week by the NYT), pictured above, is a pretty sad one. A self-made Morgan Stanley analyst-turned-restaurateur, Sumasar had her life together when she met Jerry Ramrattan (pictured below), who, according to the Times, “said he was a police detective, but never seemed to go to work. He seemed obsessed with C.S.I., Law & Order and other television police dramas.” They started dating, and he ended up moving in. Over time she became suspicious about the fact that he lied constantly, and for the next year begged him to leave, though he refused.

In March of 2009, Ramrattan reportedly cornered her, taped her mouth, and raped her. After she pressed charges, he sent people to intimidate her. When she wouldn’t drop the charges, Ramrattan–free on bail–framed her.

I’ll be honest, I’m still kinda pissed at you for making me break up all those years ago with my Mac-like TiVo and forcing me into a marriage with your PC-like fake-TiVo-that-doesn’t-have-a-catchy-name. I miss those cute noises my TiVo used to make, even that weird bonk it issued when I pushed the wrong button or what have you. But you’ve given me the MLB, NFL, and NBA packages, and Friday Night Lights six months ahead of everyone else and now Damages, so, really, I’ve had little cause to complain since.

But this, DirecTV’s “The Whale” ad starring Dat Phan, winner of the first Last Comic Standing? This blows.

Wait, was this ad supposed to be funny? I’m assuming because you hired a comedian, the answer is yes. But I can’t tell. Seriously, I can’t tell.

Let’s assume this ad was supposed to be funny. Jokes about an Asian person being small are played and unfunny. So I guess you weren’t trying to be funny? See that? Now I’m confused, which is never a good thing in advertising.

As you all know, a week ago, an 8.9 earthquake hit off the eastern coast of Japan, unleashing a 23-foot tsunami that so far has claimed 7,000 lives, with another 10,000 still missing (and feared dead). Nearly 400,000 people–a good number of them elderly–have been displaced and are living in shelters. Meanwhile, the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant raised its crisis level from level 4 to 5 out of 7, which, according to CNN, “indicates the likelihood of a release of radioactive material, several deaths from radiation and severe damage to a reactor core.”

There were those who seemed more concerned with the fate of the Japanese Yen than the Japanese people, and then there were those who felt very strongly that Japan finally got what was coming to them. They took to Twitter with their talk of “payback” and “karma” for Pearl Harbor, atrocities committed against other Asian countries during WWII, the killing of whales and dolphins.

And the people expressing these sorts of sentiments haven’t just been randos with too much time on their hands, they’ve been well-known and famous, with huge followings on Twitter, radio, and TV.

In an effort to defend the Tea Party’s position that it isn’t racist, Williams cleverly decided this week to turn the tables on an, uh, obvious target: the NAACP. He called them out for being “racist” (Naturally!) due to the fact that the 99-year-old organization’s name still includes the word “colored.”

As a result of a workplace dispute which results in Hill’s firing and eviction, Hill attacks one of his colleagues Tuesday night at a social gathering in the San Fernando Valley in LA, aka Porn Valley, with…a samurai sword that was a movie prop.

It’s difficult to believe even as we write the words: Our friend John Delloro died suddenly on Saturday from a heart attack. He was 38.

Like our cohort Phil, we met John this year when he invited us to speak to his freshman Asian American Studies students at UCLA (God bless him, he was the first professor ever to cite us on a final exam). We instantly knew that John was a special person, pure soul and our brother from another mother–and we can only imagine the loss felt right now by those that have known and loved him longer. We only wish we’d had the pleasure.

John is certainly overdue for the honor of Amazian of the Week. In addition to his work in academia, he was a community leader, and a longstanding activist for labor unions and immigrant rights: he ran the Dolores Huerta Labor Institute, co-founded the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California, sat on boards for the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance and PWC, and organized for the SEIU as well as a number of other union groups. Never without action, he defined the word “activist.” And hell, with all those jobs and achievements, he also defined “Amazian.” No Hardass Asian Parent would disagree with that.

Since he was a reader and supporter of this site, we think that John would have been happy to see himself honored as this week’s Amazian. He would have probably wanted us to write more jokes in the post, but right now we just can’t seem to muster any.

We hold his family and friends in our thoughts, and know that right now he’s smiling that warm smile somewhere up in the sky.

For the second time in a year, the name “Yale” has been linked to the word “murder.” On Monday, Dr. Vajinder Toor, 34, a fellow at the Yale School of Medicine, originally of New Delhi, was shot and killed outside his home in nearby Branford by Dr. Lishan Wang, 44, originally of Beijing. Branford police were quick to say that the murder was not “in any way related to Yale,” but–too late–the crime is already being billed as another “Yale Murder.”The NY Times reports that Wang worked under Toor in New York previously and was fired after a confrontation with the man who would later be his victim. It also appears that Wang was targeting two other doctors he held responsible for his firing.

Ironically, Wang filed a lawsuit after he was fired claiming that he was “unfairly labeled excitable, emotional and unable to control his anger.”

Y’all know Diana and I aren’t exactly what you’d call fans of Tila Tequila. But when we found out Sunday morning that her boyfriend, San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman, had been arrested for allegedly choking her, we instantly felt awful for her. Sure, we didn’t yet know the full story, but when you hear about a woman in a domestic abuse situation, you think about all women who’ve been in domestic abuse situations, you know? Which, by the way, is one-quarter of us. Yes, that’s right, 1 in 4 women will be victim to domestic violence in her lifetime. We all know these women. She could be your friend, your girlfriend, your mother. She could be you.

The hashtag #tiladeservedit popped up in some of these Tweets, and every time it appeared, it was being RT’ed by one Chargers fan in particular (who I suspect authored the tag in the first place):

Two days later, what really happened between Shawne Merriman and Tila Tequila remains murky. Merriman’s claimed that Tila was drunk and he was trying to prevent her from driving. Tila responded Monday in a Tweet–which has since been removed–that she’s allergic to alcohol and doesn’t drink. It’s really unclear how this is all going to shake out. There’s a chance she may be lying and he may be innocent. But the people who cheered the news of a man allegedly committing violence against a woman? They’re already guilty of despicable behavior.

Some bad deeds are so shameful that there isn’t much to say about them really.

Such is the case with the crimes of three American men, Ronald Boyajian, 49, Erik Peeters, 41, and Jack Sporich, 75, who were charged this week under a new international law initiative, Operation Twisted Traveler, that specifically targets Americans traveling to Cambodia to sexually abuse children. U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien said in a statement:

“The men charged in this investigation apparently thought they could pursue their abhorrent desires by leaving the United States to prey on children in another country, but they were sadly mistaken. We are now working closer than ever with officials in other nations and concerned private parties to take every effort we can to identify and prosecute sex tourists, as well as to provide every protection we can to the world’s children.“

CNN reports that two of the three men sexually abused children as young as 10 and 12 years old abroad. All three face a maximum prison sentence of 30 years.

Two of the Twisted Misters

Which is just fine by us. We only have one quibble with this story, and it’s semantic. What Boyajian, Peeters, and Sporich are accused of isn’t “sex tourism.” When we think of the word “tourism,” we think of Disney World, comfortable sandals for long days of sightseeing on foot, hundreds of generic snapshots of monuments/state buildings/waterfalls, our very cute mothers in not-so-cute visors and fanny packs on a package-tour to Europe.

But “sex tourism”? There’s no such thing as “sex tourism.” Sex tourism is human trafficking. Sex tourism is sexual abuse. Sex tourism is rape. Let’s not let “twisted travelers” like Boyajian, Peeters, and Sporich off the hook in another way–by twisting our words about their crimes.

Frankly, hot messes fucking and fighting are really all I need to get away. So I eagerly set my Tivo for each half-new, half-recycled cast that VH1 is willing to spend a weekly hour on, watching each new loser grow from fledgling fuckup to reality star (a good path is to be evillest bitch on Rock of Love, then get in a violent fight during the reunion–you’ll have a good shot at competing for bucks on I Love Money before being reformed on Charm School, ultimately set up to star in your own show). I don’t miss a Sunday. I don’t miss a step.

So of course I was first in line to watch my most loathed character ever, Megan Hauserman, televise her gold digging on Megan Wants A Millionaire. The brain cells I lost during the pilot were more than made up for by the gleeful groans I expressed while watching oogly, self-important “millionaires” (Does $1.1 million ‘net worth’ really count? Not that I’m number crunching) vie for the affections of a weak-voiced, leggy blonde whose face will certainly go within the next five years.

As the first few episodes rolled out, it seemed Megan was actually reality gold: far more savvy than your average trophy wife, with a complete lack of soul. In fact, it seemed almost organic to set the match-up process of money-making douchebag with money-grubbing tramp in a TV elimination process, since it’s all fuckery and performance anyway.

I was enthralled. And though she rubbed lips with both grubby old dudes and closeted trust fund baby, I held high hopes that by Episode 13, she’d realize that her perfect match was a cocky Canadian playa named Ryan, who caught her early attention by telling Megan he wouldn’t make her sign a prenup (game, set…). Three shows along, and I felt Ryan was in it to win it.

Then, suddenly, it got real dark.

Model Jasmine Fiore (left), ex-wife of Ryan Jenkins (right), was found murdered a week and a half ago. Jenkins, a suspect for her murder, was found hung in a motel room yesterday.

VH1 has since canceled and erased all trace of Megan Wants a Millionaire and I Love Money 3 from their website and program listings.

And I find myself now reeling with both fascination and strange pangs of guilt for watching him in the first place. It’s natural when watching reality to get to know, begin to identify with, and develop loose affection for the contestants. So watching this kind of terrible saga unfold feels, for some reason, personal. Why must I feel that way? It’s horrific.

Perhaps the reality is that reality television isn’t just an escape. The players may be trashy, the music cues may be funny, but the people are real. And sometimes, all too real.